For example, users of steel plates etc. often demand of the manufacturer the attachment of the results of a material test concurrently with the delivery of the product. In response to this demand, the manufacturer has hitherto cut out a part of the product and conducted a test of the physical properties (tensile strength, toughness, etc.) of the extracted sample.
In some cases, the properties of the steel product have been estimated based on production conditions such as steel ingredients and rolling termination temperature. Since, however, this is usually done using a regression method and does not take metallurgical phenomenon into consideration, the scope of application is limited and disadvantageously this method cannot be applied to different production processes or steel plate thicknesses.
The above-described artificial measurement of properties requires a lot of time, which influences the shipment and delivery of the product. Further, at the present time, the properties thereof can be discerned only in a finished product, and the development of a technique that enables the properties of the steel product to be estimated before production thereof and, at the same time, provides production conditions capable of providing a high quality goods consistently, is required in the art.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method of estimating the properties of a steel product that enables the properties of the steel product to be automatically assessed based on given production conditions.